S Korea Hates Japan More Than North Korea, Gallup Poll Reveals

Nothing brings a nation together like a common enemy and the Olympics give us an excuse to degrade every other country on the planet world without it seeming xenophobic.

It was in the midst of this festive atmosphere that Gallup Korea published their annual poll showing the country’s opinion of the rest of the world. The results? South Korea hates Japan even more than North Korea and loves America the most.

Okay, so the Japanese and South Koreans don’t get alone—what else is new? Japan hit the top of the same list back in 2002 and it shouldn’t be too hard to find a poll in Japan where Korea scores the same.

What is different about this year’s results is how much Korea seems to hate Japan: whereas 19.1% of South Koreans polled said they hold a unfavorable view of runner-up country China, a whopping 44.1% of respondents answered the same of Japan. While K-pop tops Japanese music charts and young Japanese women dream of bagging a Korean boy, nearly half of Korea is telling Japan to shove off.

Of course, the timing of the research was far from ideal: 1500 male and female Korean adults were polled over 16 days from July 14 to July 29—only a month after right-wing Japanese activist Nobuyuki Suzuki enraged the entire country by setting up a sign reaffirming Japan’s claim disputed islands and denouncing comfort women as prostitutes next to a comfort women memorial statue in Seoul.

Here are the 2012 results compared with 2002 in parenthesis (translated from Japanese):

On the other hand, South Koreans seem to love Americans more than ever before. This was especially true of respondents over the age of 60, 32.8% of whom said they felt America was still one of the good guys. Interestingly enough, America also makes the list for top 5 most disliked countries, but looking at the drop from 18% in 2002 to 4.8% this year shows that South Korea has been warming up to the country over the past decade.

I wonder how Canadians and mexicans and South americans feel about the USA laying claim to a whole 2 continents. America is many countries, not just the USA. But I'm also guilty of saying America instead of USA too. Its a hard habit to break -_-

Not starting anything, but have you not heard the US political rhetoric? They always say 'America' to refer to the country, even when mentioning that 'America' is for 'Americans' and using the term as nationality, when a bunch of the people they're referring to in regards to immigration are Amerindians of Mexican/Central American nationality who originally used to live in the parts of the US that used to be Mexico not that long ago.

If you watch the news in other countries, most anchors strive for exactitude and clarity and say US/EEUU/USA. I speak 4 languages and all of them have a collective term for 'Americans' that doesn't imply the whole continent. The US president still says 'my fellow Americans' and the like to refer to his country people. Just sayin', it's not like your proposed solution hasn't been tried, and the terminology problem is still there.